Unlucky Thirteen
by celestial1
Summary: Hans returns to the Southern Isles, and finds out what his twelve older brothers think of his behavior. Follows 'Frozen Fever' and 'A Frozen Heart.' Rated T for whump


**author's note.** So I've been reading _A Frozen Heart_ , which is licensed by Disney and thus at least semi-canon, and wow, Hans Westergaard is a hot mess. Like I'd assumed that he was exaggerating about his brothers ignoring him, but it turns out that if anything he was only telling a fraction of the real story. His family really was that awful to him, in part I think due to the circumstances of his birth - thirteen is an unlucky number in many cultures. And while I'm not a Hans-apologist by any means (I have sisters and I would _gladly_ kill for them) I do think we should keep in mind what the trolls (ugh) said: people make bad choices when they're mad or scared or stressed, and I think Hans is at least two out of the three. And I hope that the rumored redemption arc in _Frozen 2_ is a thing, because redemption is way more interesting than revenge, and I think after what she's been through Elsa is big enough to forgive.

* * *

 _"We shall see what his twelve big brothers think of his behavior..."_

The first thing they did was shave off all his hair.

One heavy brother sat on each of his limbs as Caleb wielded the razor. Hans could have told them not to bother. He wasn't going to fight.

Within a very few minutes Hans was bald as an egg, surrounded by a pile of hair and whiskers the same dark-cherry auburn as eleven of his twelve brothers. Hair that made him unmistakably a Westergaard, and as such, he didn't really mind losing it.

The next thing they did was confiscate and burn all his fine princely clothes. Then they chained his hands and feet and stood him, naked but for a pair of skimpy linen breeches - no more than a loincloth, really - in the public courtyard of the palace. And though it was summer and the Southern Isles were warm, he couldn't stop his body from shivering.

This went on every day for a fortnight. It was generally understood that any citizen of the Southern Isles should feel free to jeer at the deposed Prince, and spit upon him, and pelt him with rotten vegetables and worse. Hans recognized some of the faces from the three years he'd spent as his father's tax collector. Men he'd threatened - or more than threatened - traveled from all seven isles to gloat at how the tables were turned. Hans didn't blame them one bit.

( _You made yourself into this monster_ , he told himself. _You traded in your integrity for the foolish hope of your father's love, and now you have neither_.)

( _You deserve this_ , he'd think as another angry villager screamed in his face. Fists pounding his flesh, fingernails raking his skin. _This is yours. Welcome it._ )

They wouldn't even unchain Hans to relieve himself, and soon his breeches were stiff with piss. He grew filthier and more humiliated with each passing day. The palace guard would retrieve him only after the sun went down, and then his refuge was a tiny cell and a bowl of slop. Every morning, when he was roused with a deluge of water or a boot to the head, Hans could already hear his tormentors queueing up for the day.

The windows to the palace council hall stood open, and from his vantage point Hans could just barely see inside. He knew his father and mother and brothers were going round and round, talking over each other as they decided his fate.

 _Throw him in the ocean_ , he could almost hear Ivar saying. _Tie him up and let his body become food for the sharks_.

 _Castrate him_ , Jens would suggest. _Let the Queen of Arendelle do the honors_.

Lars was the only one who came to see Hans during that fortnight. He came down to the dungeon one night - simply bribed the guard and slipped into his younger brother's cell. Hans couldn't meet his eyes.

"My wife baked you some bread," Lars began, setting a small round loaf next to the untouched dish of gruel. It was warm and fragrant and _still steaming_ \- Hans' mouth watered and his stomach tied in knots, but he breathed through his mouth so the smell wouldn't tempt him. He was a monster; he hardly deserved Helga's good bread.

"Gods, you look terrible," Lars tried again. "Let me see you." He angled Hans' face towards the light and, with a clean-smelling rag, began to wipe away the spittle and horse-dung. Hans submitted sullenly to his brother's ministrations, only hissing with pain when Lars hit upon a particularly fresh bruise or a rather deep scrape. "This is… this is too much," Lars said in frustration after ten minutes of it. He probed gently at a lump on his brother's side, irrefutable evidence of a broken rib. "Who's been kicking you?"

Hans was determined to maintain the silent treatment but he couldn't help but snort at his brother's question. _Are you that naive, brother?_ _ **Everyone's**_ _been kicking me._

Lars sat back on his heels, rag in his hand. "Hans," he began. "What they are saying you did to the Queen and Princess… Tell me it isn't true." No reply. "I'd believe it of Rudi or of Runo, but not of you."

Hans hadn't spoken a word in days; his voice was rusty and his lips were cracked. But he couldn't bear for Lars, of all his brothers, not to think the worst of him. "It's true."

Lars didn't look angry, only disappointed. Sad, even. "Hans," he said again. "Why?"

As if Hans hadn't asked himself that very question, every hour of the last fortnight. "I don't know," he said, carefully avoiding his brother's eyes. There was a tremor in his voice as he spoke. "I guess I really am a monster."

"You're not a monster. You can come back from this."

"They want me killed, don't they?"

"Of course not," Lars said, but Hans could tell from the way he angled his eyes away that he was lying.

"What does Father say?"

"Don't worry about Father. Let me reason with him. Look…"

Lars was going to go all maudlin on him, Hans could tell. "What?"

"I know it can't have been easy for you, growing up in a family like ours. I wish, for your sake, it could have been different."

"You were there when I was born," Hans said. "Has it always been this way? Was I born unfavored, or did I do something to earn it?" He thought of Elsa with the power she could scarcely control. "Was it a curse?"

"You mean you don't know?"

"Know what?"

"You're the thirteenth child. Thirteen is an unlucky number."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

The largest and ugliest of the guards rattled the bars. "Time's up, highness."

Lars looked distressed. "I paid you for a quarter of an hour."

"And it's been more than that," the guard said with a sneer, "only I looked the other way on account of I'm such a nice guy. Out. Now."

Lars gathered his things, pushed the loaf of bread forward as if to remind Hans of its presence. "I love you, brother," he said softly.

Hans couldn't meet his eyes. "Please," he said, "please don't."

And then he was alone. He couldn't resist the bread any longer - scarfed it down greedily, loathing himself with every bite. Because his body was no longer accustomed to real food, he retched it all up again only a few minutes later. Finally, Hans curled up around the ache in his belly and went to sleep.

* * *

One morning Hans woke, as he often had, to a guard standing over him with a bucket of water. He clenched his muscles in anticipation of being doused, but rather than upending the bucket, the guard set it on the floor. "Make yourself presentable," he grunted. "Your Higness," he added, and spat.

There was a sliver of hard soap wrapped in brown paper - that plus cold water was hardly a luxury, but Hans was just relieved to be clean. They hadn't provided him with a mirror, but he could make out his reflection in the surface of the water. He looked so bad it was stunning, like a ghost of his former self. One eye was swollen shut and the other nearly so; his cheeks were hollow, his lips cracked. He ran a hand experimentally over his jaw, careful of the teeth that had been knocked loose. He needed a shave, but understood he wouldn't be trusted with a razor.

Once clean, or at least as clean as he was going to get, Hans investigated the small bundle of clothing which had accompanied the water and soap. There was a pair of trousers which would have fit him two weeks ago, a simple muslin shirt, and nothing else - no underclothes, no shoes, but he didn't care. He would at least be decently clothed again, no longer exposed as an object of ridicule. Hans groaned as he slipped the shirt over his head - he had too many bruises, too many broken ribs for his body not to protest.

"Quit whining," one of the guards called in response. The other two snickered. Hans disappointed them by making no response. He simply sat on his bare wooden cot and waited.

Someone would come soon, Hans thought, and he'd be back in shackles, the familiar iron bands chafing at the raw places on his ankles and wrists. He'd be paraded through the public square yet again, but this time, his destination would be the Palace, his former home. He'd be presented, barefoot and chained, in front of the council, his parents and brothers. He'd bow his head contritely as the sentence of death was read. The only question in the young prince's mind was whether he was to be hanged, beheaded, or if they'd devised something more creative.

Lost in thought, Hans didn't notice he had a visitor until the door to his cell clanged shut. Oh. It was Lars again. "Is it time?"

Lars was confused. "Time for what?"

"You know…" Hans nods towards the courtyard, where he's sure his gallows are already being built, but he can't bring himself to say the words. _Time for my execution._

"Hans…" Lars addressed his younger brother. "Your life is to be spared."

He felt like a fish thrown up on the dock, gasping for air, dying. "Did you hear me?" Lars squatted before the younger man, hands on his shoulders, forcing the eye contact which Hans would deny. "It has been decided. Your life is spared."

It took a few tries to force a word from his parched throat. "...Why?" the young prince finally managed.

"You should know, Caleb nearly had Father convinced. I tried to speak up in your favor but, well, there's only one of me.

"What happened?"

"An urgent missive arrived from the queen of Arendelle."

"Elsa?" Hans couldn't believe what he was hearing. "What did she say?"

Lars had been the one to copy the note painstakingly into the royal annals; he knew its contents better than anyone. "She said she hoped no blood would be shed on her and her sister's behalf."

"She did?"

"She also said you behaved commendably in rendering aid to the travelers stranded by the Great Freeze, a fact which she'd hope we'd consider in administering justice."

"She said that?" Hans hadn't behaved commendably, he'd behaved selfishly. If he'd done any good for the people, it had only been incidental.

"Yes, and while Father isn't keen on taking the word of a _woman_ , not the least one from such an obscure and far-flung kingdom, Ivar persuaded him that Arendelle is possessed of riches which we may yet seek in trade, although…"

Lars was gone off on another dissertation; Hans tuned him out. So he was going to live, after all. Funny, but he'd almost been _looking forward_ to dying -

Lars looked concerned. "Hans, are you listening to me?"

"I'm listening."

"You're to be a servant on the palace grounds - lower than a servant, really, since you won't be paid. You're to muck the stables, scrub floors, gut the fish harvest - anything our dear brothers can dream up." Lars twisted his mouth wryly.

"For how long? For the rest of my life?"

"Only until they grow tired of it, I suspect."

Hans laughed bitterly. "Lars, I've had twenty years of it. Our brothers' desire for sport isn't likely to wane now that I am a traitor and a murderer."

"Attempted murderer," Lars corrected. "And you may still be recalled to Arendelle to face punishment."

"I may still be executed, you mean." That was the only reason he could imagine Queen Elsa had spared his life. She didn't want him beheaded or hanged or drawn and quartered unless she was there to _watch_.

"In five minutes' time you will appear before the tribunal to hear your fate; they will tell you everything I just said."

"Then why tell me now?" Hans wondered.

Lars sighed. "I thought you should hear it from me."

"Thank you." Hans really did appreciate not being blindsided with the information. One of the guards approached the cell; the prisoner held out his wrists to be shackled.

"There's one more thing," Lars said, preparing to leave.

"What is it?"

"You are no longer a prince." Lars' eyes glinted behind spectacles. "But you are still my brother."

"Enough," the guard snorted. "Let's go."

Hans was a whole head taller than Lars - he was, in fact, the third largest of the Westergaard boys - but as he trailed behind the elder man on the way to the tribunal, he felt very small indeed.

* * *

He doesn't sing anymore. He barely even speaks.

It isn't all bad. Cleaning the stables is a foul enough job, but Hans has always loved being around horses. (His beloved Sitron, though, is long gone; sold at auction or perhaps sent to Arendelle as a peace offering. He doesn't dare ask.) Once the bruises fade and broken bones heal, Hans finds there is a comfort to the repetition of hard physical labor, and he is just vain enough to appreciate the newly hardened muscles of his shoulders and back. And the stench of manure means that on the rare occasion he ventures in public, Hans is given a wide berth.

Other days find him on his hands and knees, worrying at the royal flagstones with lye soap and a boar brush, or polishing every last one of the palace's one-hundred-and-twenty silver doorknobs. The salt air means that they tarnished quickly - almost as soon as he finishes, it's time to start again.

Of his brothers he sees but little, they being kept too busy in their royal duties to taunt him as much as they like. Sometimes when he's scrubbing the palace steps he will find one of them emptying his bladder on the cleanest patch of stone while the others snicker in the background. Hans declines to rise to the challenge, just waits until they leave and scrubs the piss away. He's finding the best way to handle a bully is to ignore him, and doesn't Hans wish he had learned _that_ lesson two decades ago.

Even Lars, the only brother who's ever shown him any kindness, is largely absent from Hans' life, being too consumed with his books and his wife and children (in that order) to take much notice of the family criminal. Hans' even dozen of sisters-in-law blur together in his eyes; having been chosen for fecundity rather than sparkling personality, they've always been hard to tell apart. He's never known the names of his horde of nieces and nephews, but they aren't hard to pick out, with the Westergaard red hair and expensively tailored clothing. Caleb's oldest is ten, and the future king just looks _mean_ , with hard slitty eyes and a constantly sneering expression. Hans doesn't mind at all that his disgrace means he is no longer required to kiss up to the spoiled lad who will someday rule over him.

Hans knows he is the monster in the stories mothers all over the Southern Isles tell their children. _You'd better be good, or Bad Prince Hans will get you! You'd better stop sucking that thumb, or Bad Prince Hans will bite it_ _ **clean off**_ _!_

Hans sleeps in the hayloft above the royal stables, where the barn cats don't know he is a traitor and a would-be murderer. They curl their little warm bodies around him as he sleeps, bring him offerings of freshly-killed rats and mice. And he has plenty to eat now, though it's only fish stew and coarse brown bread. In his former life, Hans had been partial to veal roulade, good pungent cheese from the Northern Kingdoms, sparkling wine, and _chocolate_ \- but to partake of these things required him to endure endless bickering family meals, or the interminable drone of a diplomatic state dinner. He eats in silence now, picking out the best bits of fish to save for the barn cats, and finds that the simple food fills his belly in a way he's never known before.

A few months into his punishment, Hans turns twenty-one. Ordinarily a prince's coming-of-age is a national celebration, marked with speeches and banquets and fireworks - and often, the announcement of a betrothal. (He will never marry, Hans understands now - though perhaps, to a woman with a little more zest than his sisters-in-law, he wouldn't have minded it.) Of course, the day would have also been marked with more than the usual portion of hazing at his brothers' hands - when he turned twenty, they paddled him so hard he couldn't sit down for a week - and he doesn't miss that _at all_. Still, it's the first time in his life that his birthday has been _entirely_ forgotten; alone in his hayloft that night, he squeezes out a few self-pitying tears. But when he lays down to sleep Hans finds something hard and flat under his pillow - it's a book, a volume of adventure stories which had once been his favorite in the royal library. His lips curl into a rare smile - Lars has remembered his birthday, after all.

One day, a little into the second year, Hans is struck by something heavy while stacking dung on the horse-cart. Once he has cleared the stink from his eyes and nose and mouth (gagging and retching like he will never be free of the taste) Hans looks around to see which of his brothers wielded the projectile. He's expecting to see Rudi or Runo or Caleb's brat snickering at him from behind the low stone fence, but the yard is silent. There is something large, round and white on the ground before him; Hans touches it experimentally with a fingertip and it's cold and wet. _Snow_.

It came from the northwest; Hans knows his geography well. This is clearly a gift from Arendelle.

He does think of them sometimes, the Queen and Princess whose lives he had nearly succeeded in taking. He knows there is no excusing what he did, now or in a thousand years. Hans still can't imagine why the Queen wanted his life spared; he expects daily to receive a summons to Arendelle to be tried for his crimes. He supposes Queen Elsa has the right to pummel him with giant snowballs any time she chooses.

Pretending to fall madly in love with Princess Anna had been easy enough - in part because a lonely childhood had left her desperate for affection, and didn't Hans know what _that_ was like. But also (Hans is forced to admit to himself) there had been _something_ about the girl he liked: her warmth, her effusive nature. No, he hadn't been in love with her, but so what? All twelve of Hans' brothers are in arranged marriages, not to mention his parents. It's not like love is some sort of prerequisite for marriage.

But Queen Elsa is the one who occupies Hans' thoughts as he watches the pristine white snowball melt into the filth of the stableyard. She is like her creation, beautiful and a little out of place, a little _wrong_. A fish out of water all her life, just like Hans, but unlike Hans she had done something with that feeling, created something beautiful. There is no point in comparing her glorious ice palace with his current surroundings; it's simply too absurd.

Hans picks up a little of the little of the snow and compresses it in his hands, relishing the way the cold burns his ungloved fingers. They don't really _get_ snow here in the Southern Isles, and while he's experienced it in his travels he had never been so _cold_ in all his life as those days in Arendelle. He thinks back to that day on the fjord, when in his cowardice and his rage he'd raised a sword to Queen Elsa. When Anna's love had saved her sister, and in turn had saved herself.

Frustrated, Hans throws his misshapen snowball to the ground, wiping his hands dry on his filthy clothes. The coldest day of his life, he had witnessed an act of transformative love like nothing he had ever seen before or since. And Hans knows, deep in the icy core of his frozen heart, that no one has ever loved _him_ like that, and never will.


End file.
